What song do I think everybody should listen to once in their life?
This is probably one of the hardest questions anyone can ask me…I often treat my life like I’m a character in a film, so the soundtrack changes with my mood. However, if you were to narrow me down to one it would be ‘Cigarette Daydream’ by Cage the Elephant. This is betraying my emo roots of course…sorry ‘My Chemical Romance’. However, ‘Cigarette Daydream’ has seen me through a lot. Its bittersweet lyrics and wistful melody speak to my heart, as I too sit there “driving in the pouring rain”.
What book/film should everyone have read/seen?
One film everyone should watch at least once in their lives is ‘Submarine’. It is a Welsh indie film, written and directed by Richard Ayoade, and based on the book of the same name by Joe Dunthorne. It captures what it feels like to be an awkward, dysfunctional teenager in the middle of nowhere beautifully. The cinematography is really creative too, and the soundtrack is by the Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner, so I am already slightly biased. I heavily relate to the protagonist.
Book wise, I recommend Jon Krakauer's ‘Into the Wild’. It is the kind of book that speaks for itself…Some days I just want to up sticks and leave for the hills myself.
What have I missed the most over the last 102 days?
This one is pretty simple but painfully complex in others, but I think my answer is ‘direction’.
My life today hasn’t been a simple journey. I missed a fair bit of primary school due to childhood illnesses, then at 11 I was involved in fairly sketchy riding accident in Arran. It was a combination of the two from which I realised adults couldn’t protect you from everything. In fact, we aren’t in control of the world all.
The next chapter of my life, my teens to early twenties, I spent dealing with anorexia. On refection it was my way of clutching back a sense of autonomy. Things got somewhat better, I did well at school, then moved from the Peak District to Cornwall to do illustration. Art school was cool and I certainly met some characters. However, I was also let down by some people which took a long time to get over. I began to feel trapped in a postcard and wondering what on earth I was doing. Then during third year, Covid arrived and my hopes and dreams of making it as an illustrator left. There were no degrees show, networking trips, or certainty for any of us. I returned home to the Peaks and spent the next year working service jobs to keep sane. It was all a bit bleak.
After a year, in desperation for change, I made a decision on a coin toss. The result was that I enrolled in Art and Design teacher training in Edinburgh. Teaching wasn’t/ still isn’t the dream… I thought I’d be some sort of famous artist, rock star or actor by now, but teaching gave me an escape route.
So that brings us to here, Edinburgh. After almost two years, countless late nights, and self-doubt I am almost a qualified teacher. Meanwhile I joined the university’s walking group and now spend a lot of time in the hills. It helps to remind me that I am indeed comfortingly insignificant. I have met the some of the most amazing people and now have the sort of friendships I thought only existed in films. Edinburgh is also where I first fell in love, so the city will always have this cherry blossom like nostalgia to it.
Today I still feel like a lost kid looking for answers … but this is what being in your twenties is like right? So, what I miss is what I’ve always missed, direction…but it is exactly the lack of it which makes life exciting right?
